A military jury today sentenced an Army dog handler to 90 days hard labour and instant demotion for allowing his dog to bark in an Iraqi detainee's face at Abu Ghraib prison.

Army Sergeant Santos A Cardona was the 11th soldier convicted of crimes stemming from the abuse of inmates at the prison in late 2003 and early 2004.

He was found guilty of dereliction of duty and aggravated assault for allowing his Belgian shepherd to bark within inches of the kneeling detainee.

The military jury acquitted him of other charges, including unlawfully having his dog bite a detainee and conspiring with another dog handler to frighten prisoners as a game.

Cardona will not be confined during his sentence, but will return to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where his company commander will decide what extra duties to assign as hard labour, said Lieutenant Colonel Bobbi Davis.

Cardona is likely to lose his security clearance, which would bar him from resuming work as a military policeman, Davis said.

Cardona’s rank was reduced to specialist and the court ordered him to forfeit $600 a month in pay for 12 months.

"It wasn’t an acquittal," Cardona’s civilian attorney, Harvey Volzer, told his client, "but it was pretty darn good."

Prosecutor Major Matthew Miller had recommended 12 months confinement and a bad conduct discharge.

"You can win all kinds of battles and end up losing the whole dang war basically for boneheaded decisions and misjudgments," Major Miller told the jury.

Santos’ military lawyer, Captain Kirsten Mayer, said Mr Miller had exaggerated the offence.

"What we have here is a soldier who let his dog get too close to a detainee, and the dog barked," she told the jury.

Although none of the offences was alleged to have occurred during interrogations, Cardona’s defense team focused on interrogation policies, including three memos issued in a month’s time by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, then commander of US forces in Iraq.

The memos authorised harsher interrogation techniques such as stress positions, sleep deprivation and dogs at Abu Ghraib - but only with written authorisation.

The changing policies confounded Colonel Thomas Pappas, an intelligence officer who assumed the prison’s management in late 2003. Pappas was reprimanded last year for approving a request to use dogs in an interrogation without Sanchez’ approval - something Pappas testified he believed at the time the policy allowed.

"We were all confused at one time or another," Pappas said.

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